Ron Paul, Legislative Hero

We are drowning in new laws, and in 2013, we should have in Washington people who not only don’t want to add to our burdens but who perhaps will work to repeal many of the onerous laws already placed on our shoulders. Instead of saying how many laws somebody got enacted, we will cheer how many they repealed!

The 2010 GOP midterm victories appear to have somewhat slowed down the pace of destructive lawmaking. Gov.track reported in late December 2011 that “numbers confirm what we already pretty much know: Congress this year isn’t getting much done. The number of bills enacted this year is lower than it has ever been in at least 30 years. If you think Congress should be passing fewer laws, then you got your wish this year.”

Of course, Rep. Ron Paul has put forward bills. A recent Washington Post story recalls that 11 days after he was elected to Congress in 1976, Paul introduced a bill to repeal the law that created the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. He has demanded a full audit of the Federal Reserve Board, and more recently, he has authored a law to permit private groups to issue their own currency. Okay, this last may be strange. But Paul isn’t my only legislative hero.

Special kudos must also go to Rep. Michele Bachmann, who has, in her five years in Congress, introduced 45 bills, none of which have passed. Brava!

Bachmann, like Paul, however, has been a worthy foe of the passage of bills that feature excessive new regulations to hamper business and burden the American people. Let us hope this is the wave of the future.

Paul has some loopy ideas, and I wouldn’t relish a Michael Moore foreign policy if by some bizarre chance he became president. I also worry that his supporters will hand Barack Obama a second term in the name of fiscal purity.

But, Mr. O, when it comes to legislative achievements, the tiny Texan is a giant in my book.